This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.

Pages

Thursday, June 1, 2017

To Our New Education Secretary Betsy DeVos: We Plant Seeds by Mimi Ramirez

On days like these there is no reasonto use metaphors and similes,except to show that my creative writing teacher,at my public high school,taught me exceptionally well.

Betsy,

Your smile sits like a white picket fencesurrounding a mansion where the American Dreamcomes only to those whose heads reston feather pillows with Egyptian cotton casesfluffed by the help.

Your manicured clawsare not sullied with the callouses of hard work,.Your only scars are papercuts from

throwing money at problems,Ink stains on your fingers,

but only as deep as your concernfor the sons and daughters of your home state,where school choice means choosing betweena private school you can’t pay forand a public school nobody else will.

Let's be honest here:The only people who should be profitingfrom education are the students.Not the cronies who bought themselves a Presidentso you could buy yourself a job.The product of the school systemis education, not a trillion dollars worth oflifelong debt, a mortgage on a future.

I have to hand it to you, since apparentlyyou’re accustomed to being handed things.You’ve done a lot in Michigan's school system.You can hide anything in fine printwhen you don’t teach people how to read.

When you actually teach for a living,you have to go to bed pretty early, soissuing orders and announcing policiesin the middle of the night is a cunning stunt.It must be nice to sleep in whilethe Pledge of Allegiance is recited like a prayerby teachers who don't know if they still believe it.

Your family tree is rooted in private schoolsso tightly the branches strangle everything else.The forest around you is sliced thin into certificatesthat carry real weight but areblown away easily by hot air.Each of us who had to earn that paper knowthat our credentials should be printed on gold,but if they were worth money, you’d just buy one.

Your first day in office, you tweetedthat you didn't know where the pencils arein the ivory bunker you issue your orders from.You can’t hear the scratching in American classroomsas pencils are sharpened into nubs,teachers dread students making mistakesbecause erasers get used up quickly wheneverything around you is just slightly wrong.

The only schools you’ve praised werebuilt with gold bricks, not cinderblocks and sweat,according to standards set by the lowest bidder,lower than the morale of our teachers in a worldwhere the gatekeeper of knowledge can’t evenexplain the rules of her own department.“School choice.” It sounds nice,makes perfect sense when you hear it, like“separate but equal,” or “PATRIOT Act.”

You are the worm in my apple,polished by an eager studentto grace the desks of teacherstoo tired to chew and too busy to eat.You said something interesting when youset foot in a public school for the first time in your life.You said the teachers there were "in receive mode,"like they weren’t doing anything until you showed up.

But you're right.We are all in receive mode.Here are a few things we'd like to receive:Pay proportional to the effort it takesto be even a mediocre teacher.Contracts that don't assume our working hoursare anything less than our waking hours.

Testing that tests how we teach instead oftesting how well we teach the test.Respect and support from parents, since apparentlywe won’t be getting it from you.Enough of a budget to educate our studentsin a clean, safe environmentthat isn’t safe because we’re armedand isn’t clean because we turn away the huddled masses.Meals for students who could open their mindsif somebody would fill their stomachs.

And time.Not much of it, just more.Time should be all we need ifTime is money, money buys power,And power is a substitute for education.

About the Author: Mimi Ramirez has been teaching Art for 3 years after many small gigs at small art centers. She has wanted to teach since she was 4 years old, and couldn't have done it without the support of her teachers growing up. Her experiences led her to become for her students what she needed as a teenager, and she often challenges her students to challenge anything that affects their future. She believes public education serves all students and deserves respect. She is pursuing a certificate in English, in case art programs are unceremoniously cut, but jokes that only if she can teach poetry.